


three sentence AU meme responses

by herophelia



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Premium Rush (2012), Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, F/F, F/M, Gen, Historical, Rule 63, Universe Alteration, gen or romantic depending on which way you tilt your head when you squint
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-14
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-01-12 08:33:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 2,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1184141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herophelia/pseuds/herophelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a meme floating around - give a pairing and an AU, get three sentences of fic. These are those fic-minis.</p><p>Each chapter title is a copy/paste of the prompt I was given and the name of the person who requested it, if they're on AO3. Prompts were given in this plurk: http://www.plurk.com/p/jq7nm4</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. ClintTasha - Cyberpunk (for redlionspride)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redlionspride](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redlionspride/gifts), [minor_ramblings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/minor_ramblings/gifts), [alexandrine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexandrine/gifts).



"You know," he says, eyes focused behind his magnifying goggles and hands far steadier than his voice as he prods in the gash on her neck, "someone who didn't know you might call the way you fling yourself off of buildings sort of insane - not that I'm saying that, mind, because I'm not suicidal… but some people might."

Natasha just shrugs one shoulder, causing the probe in his hand to touch live wire and spark, throwing a Look over her shoulder while she chides him with a calm "that's the beauty of being more machine than human, when I break you can just go out and find someone to build you another one, a better one - Widow 2.0… now shut up and fix my wiring."

Clint gets quiet, then, serious in a way she rarely sees from him, his hands resting more heavily on her skin, as though she can't slip away if he doesn't let go, and his voice is almost too soft to hear his reply - "No one can build another you, Tash… I wouldn't want to try."


	2. Steve/Natasha, uhhhh Zombies?

It says something, about life in general, that Natasha can still be surprised; something not so great, she muses, as she drives a knife through the eye of what was once her favourite analyst in the SHIELD tombs (a nickname which now sends shivers up her spine). Behind her, she can hear the whoosh and thunk and thump of Steve using his own shield, hear it ricocheting off the walls to return to him, and she's glad that he has a weapon of distance, that he doesn't need to be up close and personal to see that there's no life to leave the eyes of the herds they're mowing down in their single minded focus to get out of the Nevada base alive. The world goes to Hell, and they keep marching on - she feels his hand on her shoulder, offering support, turning them both down another corridor to break out into the sunlight and sprint for the humvee, and she wonders if they're always going to be running full speed into a future neither of them ever wanted to live to see.


	3. Pepper/Natasha, regency era (for minor_ramblings)

Natasha and Pepper accept society invitations, not to find a husband, but to find sport and enjoyment in each others' company, for there isn't much on the dance floor or in the edge of room conversations to tempt them, though Anthony Stark has been taking Pepper's attention for the last three functions now, and Natasha refuses to let that slide without comment.

Pepper listens to the list of reasons that Stark is not worth the trouble, not worth the effort to peer beneath the veneer, for there is nothing but pot metal under that gold shine, but her smile is still her own, a secret, and her words are spare and quiet when she answers: "He takes no real pleasure in women, because women take such pleasure in him, simper after his favour and his fortune, but I do not intend to be a prize so easily won… I intend, dearest friend, to be a prize beyond his attaining, so that he might want it all the more."

"Then I shall take myself to Europe," Natasha declares with a put upon sigh, turning to face her friend, "find my own pleasure, live my life and have my fun, feel no guilt or shame, and then find a man with _great_ age and _greater_ wealth, and wait for nature and time to make him a happy corpse and me a happier widow…" and she smiles, and Pepper has not a single doubt that Natasha will bend entire nations to her will, just as she has not a single doubt that she will take a man dedicated to a life of decadence, and make herself the one unattainable indulgence he refuses to live without.


	4. wilee/natasha, victorian era?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AU mashup thingie, but all the backstory you really need to know is that Natasha is undercover and using Wilee.

They've been in London for six months now, Wilee quickly becoming a favourite among those at court who demand professionalism, thanks to his speed and tenacity, his unwillingness to let himself be set upon by bandits, his spotless record of receipt, and finally Natasha's break comes. Six months of Natasha taking out the competition without him realizing, without anyone realizing, no pattern to follow or rhyme or reason behind the accidents, because who would ever think to look at the advancement of one messenger to explain all the unrelated chaos, and who would ever look to the fresh faced young woman on his arm and think her capable of such brutality? When the missive from the Cardinal comes in, it's the simplest of matters to break the seal while Wilee sleeps, change the message, recreating the letter in perfect detail and have it ready to be sent upon its way again - and now the game has finally begun, and the war on the Crimean Peninsula and Russia's seas will be redirected by _one_ native daughter, to the benefit of many.


	5. Cho/Alba - after the end (or, if you need something more specific, then Mad Max-esque I guess!)

It's not a good thing, to be small and pretty with the way society works now - not a good thing to be delicate and breakable, to be someone worth taking advantage of, and Cho's sure she wouldn't survive it without Alba (though the angel is also beautiful, she's just an intimidating kind of beauty that stops people cold in their tracks before they can attempt anything untoward).

Cho holds no illusions (not any more), knows what would become of her without her protector, and even though she's learning to defend herself, she's not foolish enough to think she could survive on her own, that she doesn't need Alba desperately as more than simply a companion; it may be love, it may just be desperation, but it's more real than anything else that Cho can lay claim to now.

The angel on her shoulder has blood on her hands, same as Cho, and when they go to sleep at night, there's nothing that feels like heaven or salvation or any sort of redemption anywhere close at hand; but they're alive, they're uninjured enough to keep moving, and the fact that there's another heart beating is comfort enough in a world where nothing is comforting any more.


	6. Cho/Zoey - Musketeer AU

There are men who still insist that the life of a King's Musketeer is not one fit for women, that the fairer sex has no right to take up arms in the defense of their Monarch, or that these mere slips of girls can't possibly match wits or blades with any man, let alone the best of the best that France has to offer; these are men who have never met Zoey and Cho, have never seen the former make the air sing with the tip of her sword, or witnessed the tactical mind of the later turning any shortcoming to an unexpected advantage, and they have certainly never seen the two of them join their considerable talents to become a deadly force of nature.

It never has, never will bother the women - all for one and one for all, but above that, these two for each other, because they know who they can count on, know that the adversity makes them stronger, that the doubt drives them to heights few can hope to reach; and how dizzying their perches are now. Unrest may be on the horizon (as it always seems to be) but that will not shake their confidence, and when enemies come to the same conclusions they have had to fight their entire careers, that is simply another advantage they can turn to their own ends in the quest for victory.


	7. Pasha/Uhura sistership monster au

The ship is overrun, every soul still alive is in danger, and Uhura can feel Pasha shaking behind her, the wet spot on her shoulder where the girl must not realize her tears are falling, can feel her tremble in proportion to the groan and strain of _Enterprise_ , because she must be able to calculate just how close the ship is to being torn apart. There's nothing to be done if Pasha can't move, if the girl can't keep her wits about her long enough to at least alert Uhura to danger before it's upon them, so she turns, places both of her hands on those thin shoulders, and gives her one good shake to get her attention.

"You listen to me, little one - this is not a simulation, this is not a game, and I'm not going to tell you that we're going to make it out of this, because I don't know - but I _do_ know that the only chance we have is together; so you're going to bottle it up and stop crying and you're going to be my eyes and ears, stuck right to my back, and we are getting to a shuttle, and I promise you that once we do, there will be plenty of time to cry - but right now, we hold it together," she says, dark eyes fierce and intent as she demands a response with a curt "understand?" and is finally rewarded with a nod of those curls and a squaring of slim shoulders.


	8. Natasha/Bond, regency era. Or regency era spies. Or just regency, wherever it takes you u_u

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ties back in with the Regency era mini-fic in chapter 3 where Natasha and Pepper discussed their hypothetical futures.

Natasha's taken to Europe like a fish to water - the parties, the extravagance, the food and the wine and the _men_ , she'd decided to get the most out of life, and not one regret on that count yet, and this latest fling is even more fun than the last three she's had (even more so because it's mixing business and pleasure, and business has proven to be a hell of a lot more fun that the most wild excitement of her old life) and she's in no hurry to let him go.

Of course, at the moment she's more concerned with not letting go of the window ledge she's hanging from, dressed in fitted black trousers and a tight black shirt that would surely have even the most forward thinking Parisian picking their jaw up off the floor as they tried to decide just when Natasha had lost her mind - but that is neither here nor there, and the mental image (funny though ti may be) is a distraction she does not need as she heaves herself over the ledge with upper body strength she should not possess and lands lightly on the plush carpet inside the chamber. It takes her eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness, inky pitch black, and before she has the chance her ears are alerting her to the fact that she's not along in the room, a fact that quickly resolves itself into a no holds barred grapple across that rug that is suddenly not nearly as plush as Natasha would like, until she and her unwanted company have wrestled one another into the moonlight streaming through the window and she recognizes the surprised face of Bond, the same face she slipped out of bed this morning and left slumbering peacefully… which just opens up a whole new set of problems, doesn't it?


	9. PLACEHOLDER

because if i don't, i will clearly forget this

@Degen: (and if you do have time for an after-the-biblical-end, I will very eagerly read it)


	10. Zoey/Cho Regency era!AU

Dances and balls and afternoon teas and picnics, the usual diversions of the country, had never much interested Cho, much the same way they had never much interested Zoey, which probably had everything to do with why the two women had become such firm and fast friends, that mutual understanding shared between two souls that had the potential to be so much more than what life had planned for them. Marriage would come, of course, of that Cho was certain - but equally certain was the knowledge, bright and shining, that no one would ever understand her the way her best friend did, that no one would ever look at her and see more, encourage her to test the limits imposed upon her daily.

She would never have the freedom her brother did, never inherit a living of her own, never be permitted to earn one (and heaven preserve her poor mother's taxed heart if she ever broached the subject again) even if she'd possessed a skill worth anything in the real world, and Zoey's only chance of keeping her own mother in a comfortable home once her father passed was to secure herself a good match, but that utter certainty would never stop them from climbing down rough stone walls in the middle of the night, running through the fields to the old stone edifices in the clearings and climbing to the mossy plateaus to lie side by side and stare up at fields of bright stars and _dream_ of something more.


	11. Nat/Steve, Space (for alexandrine)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Probably not the "AU" you were expecting, but the idea of putting them all together makes me happy.

Steve is calm and collected through the launch procedure, through the rumbling take off that feels like an explosion under them, through the truly terrifying experience of shedding portions of the ship as they're no longer required, losing more and more of what feels like a protective shield as they hurtle off into space in a feat that had seemed entirely impossible in his youth. It isn't until the true craft is revealed underneath the mundane facade, sleek and fast with Tony's personal aesthetic dripping from every sharp angle of the design, and Natasha wraps her hands around the controls and sends them hurtling through the black with acceleration he can feel in the pit of his stomach that he lets himself really think about the fact that they're in space, grateful that Natasha's own excited laughter masks his sound of distress as she turns the ship in a tight corkscrew just because she can.

It's not until their rendezvous is in sight, almost as sleek as Tony's own design and gleaming blue and orange in the light of an alien planetary system's dwarf star, that she stops the stunt man flying and levels them out, giving Steve the chance to breathe as she opens up a communications channel, asking for a confirmation from the Milano that they're expected, that he eases up the white knuckle grip on the arms of his seat, and stares displeased at the dents he's left.


	12. Zoey/Cho and noir or steampunk (this one is noir)

Cho sits in the uncomfortable chair next to the detective's desk, fingers folded in her lap, an expression of calm confusion on her face, as though she can't imagine why she's been called in, though of course she knows full well what Zoey was actually up to last night and has been expecting this call to provide an alibi all day - yes, they were together, listened to the radio, played some cards, talked of hopes and dreams which are none of your business sir and that's all she has to say about it, arms crossed, full red lips pursed and daring as he blows a cloud of cigarette smoke between them and she refuses to bend, annoyance dripping from every scant inch of her frame as she recounts the night that actually passed a week ago over and over again, forwards and backwards and sideways without a hitch and if he's waiting for her to slip up he's going to be sorely disappointed, because Cho doesn't slip and that's why Zoey counts on her.

Hours later when her friend is finally let into the bullpen, sparkle in her eyes telling Cho that they're right on track, and she shrugs those meaty paws off of her shoulders to take her small friend in her arms, kisses on cheeks and rolled eyes and complaints about these stupid gumshoes looking for anyone they can bully into taking the rap instead of actually trying to do their jobs and every person in the room knows it's a crock and every person in the room knows they can't touch her regardless. It'll be months before it's safe enough to head for the bolthole, count out the haul, drape themselves in jewels and dream about the future that's never coming, because they both know that no one ever getsout of this life, but that doesn't mean they'll stop trying.


	13. Zoey/Cho and noir or steampunk (and here's the steampunk one cause why not?)

Cho has been saying the same thing over and over again for the last fifteen minutes, an endless litany of "this isn't going to work, this isn't going to work, this isn't going to work" as they crouch on the flimsy little catwalk, gazing down at the massive airships docking and disembarking below them, the fumes dizzying and the sounds deafening as repairs are made and cargo loaded and unloaded and Cho isn't entirely certain if it's the combination of the two or her own panic that's bringing unconsciousness dangerously close.

She's well on her way to working herself into a true panic when Zoey finally speaks up from beside her, saying nothing but "fine, then, we'll go back and I'll take the consequences that are coming to me" with that steely look of determination in her eyes, and Cho knows for a fact that she means it, that she will go back if Cho isn't willing to go forward, and the fear in her friend's eyes is a reflection of what's happening in her rib cage.

It's not even a question, and Cho takes Zoey's hand and jumps, suddenly certain that while this plan is insane and terrifying and likely to get them killed, going back now will absolutely result in Zoey's death, and that's not an option she'd willing to entertain, even though the uncertain future she's just flung them into, the pair clinging to the thick ropes of the net that keeps the envelope firmly attached to the rest of the ship with no idea what's in store when they're inevitably discovered.


End file.
